When the Synod of Bishops meets next month to discuss how to support the institution many feel is under serious threat, it will be well advised to look first at the widely varying experiences of ordinary people Marriage and family are words that carry a great deal of weight, to each of us, personally, but also in the world and the Church. Most of us understand marriage and family through our own experience and the experience of those closest to us, but that experience is not universal and does not always match what we think society and the Church has to say about marriage and family life. Jesus himself had little to say specifically about the goodness of families. Today Christian churches of all denominations struggle to reconcile what they believe about family with the way family life h